


Imperfect

by WolfAndHound_Archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Post-Sirius in Azkaban
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 09:23:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5922400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfAndHound_Archivist/pseuds/WolfAndHound_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is much that Remus will never tell Sirius</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imperfect

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Lassenia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Wolf and Hound](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Wolf_and_Hound), which was created to make stories posted to the Sirius_Black_and_Remus_Lupin Yahoo! mailing list easier to find. However, even though I still love the fandom, I am no longer active in it and do not have the time to maintain it. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in December 2015. I posted an announcement with Open Doors, but we may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Wolf and Hound collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wolfandhound/profile).

Remus sits in bedtime wait for night and sleep. It's dark, shadows spindling spider-like across his view of the apartment, but there's still light enough for him to make out lines, figures and inadequacies - not that he ever has to search far for the latter. It's cold in here, because he can't afford to warm himself entirely, and has to settle for bits and pieces - a big toe going unnoticed one day, a bout of blue fingers the next. He wears a scarf to bed, and has to shift into a tight ball under rag-tag sheets to reassure himself he's not really frozen yet.

Earlier, in the flush of daylight, however pale a thing in Remus's drab abode, Sirius broke tight smile across worn face and told him to eat more, that he was too thin for his own good. It was Sirius's way of trying to fill the void of years, an awkward extension into the Way It Used to Be, and Remus knew to smile, hair falling easily over his face, a tried-and-true method to avoid the shame of knowing he still hasn't the means to eat his fill, and likely never will. Sirius hasn't quite figured this out yet, doesn't know of the doors slammed in Remus's face when he goes looking for work in town, slender fingers crinkling unpaid notes in bunched up frustration, and Remus doesn't care to inform him, especially when the hungry look in Sirius's eyes, a haunting hangover from Azkaban that will likely take years to heal, bids Remus lay out the last of everything at mealtimes with no regret.

There's a lot Sirius doesn't know; a lot Remus will never bring himself to reveal. Remus won't speak of the money, or the jobs, but more importantly he won't speak of the years, of himself. He won't ask Sirius why trust fell so easily to suspicion. He won't tell him how long he's thought about all the reasons why.

He's had time enough, after all, time to lay out every possible wand-path that led from spell-caster to this, a wreck of years and death and suffering, and to single out a single thread that binds all possibilities worth consideration. Something somewhere some-when drove Sirius to Peter, laying the Mark of traitor on Remus's head. And Remus, after more than a decade, has finally decided what it was.

It was in the fall of his cheeks, much too sunken, and in his eyes, which were always reprehensibly dark and secret. It was in the way, back at Hogwarts, he fell to thinking and sometimes forgot to fall back, un-thinking, to the real world when he was through. It was his breathing, much too quiet, that lent something wholly unnatural, unlikable to his persona even then.

It was his reading, and the way his skin looked (and still does) a little too pale in the light, and far too ghost-like in the dark. It was the way he fell to silence in the days before and after changing, and how he walked like a shadow, so careful not to interfere; perfect for a spy.

It was his scars, and the way the name "monster" eked in creeping lines across his body, impossible to forget, he knows, for even Sirius, once upon a time, ran fingers trance-like over the tears, perhaps more fixated on them than the sex. The others always spoke of equality, and called him "man", but in the hollow of his moments with Sirius, and the lessons taught in sixth year one not-so-fine morning after, Remus learned the truth: that it was inescapable, what he was, and that nothing would draw his stigma from him. He could be loved, and fucked, and befriended, but there would always be the knowledge, a common lack of trust, that he was imperfect, that he was Dark, and secretive, and certainly not safe. And this, he decides, this laundry list of failures and shortfalls was why everything went to hell.

So now Remus sits in bedtime wait for sleep and night. In the years after the rise of Wolfsbane it became difficult to remember just where his inadequacies ended. Docile now, his scars testament more to his silent suffering than potential, he has had to find new reasons why it could never work, why Sirius would never find him desirable again. Guilt has been too convincing an addiction for far too long for him to wean himself away, and new symptoms fall easy into his scope. He needs only look at a mirror these days to pick out the flaws in scores from his reflection and surroundings; it is a burden that lends excuse to his lost hopes and dreams. He is this way and always will be, for one reason or another. The distinction has long since blurred.

In the dark tonight he remembers his breathing has deteriorated, almost a rattle in the night. He remembers his hair is greying, his face tired and old. He remembers how chilled hands shake the day after a transformation, and how sometimes he has to limp when he walks. It hurts when Sirius calls him thin, because he knows he's mere skin and skeletal bone - certainly nothing much left to kiss and hold and use - and more of a vagabond than the sort who could support Sirius, now that support is in dire need.

And he knows he didn't trust Sirius either; didn't try. He knows this to be the greatest onus of all, for while Sirius had means and reason for suspicion, Remus fell too far too fast into believing in the guilt of the only man who'd ever dared lay gentle touch to a creature as monstrous as he. For this and everything, his scent, his face, his body - surely no trophy prize even in school - he knows himself unworthy when Sirius steps out of the shower, hair still damp, and into their room, up to Remus's bed.

Yes, Remus can see how wasted the body and mind of his lover have become; can count ribs with the run of his eyes, and study the sag of haggard face and form, dark lines. He sees this but doesn't care, grateful even to have this much, remembering how mighty and firm Sirius was even as sex is brought to a swift halt by Dementor fears that still shake Sirius groin-deep on some days. Remus wonders idly if it's his fault again, for not being enough to help him overcome this night terror, and nestles to the task of compensating with lips for what he knows his body alone obviously cannot provide.

After, when lip-fuck finally yields results and sex ensues, and Remus struggles not to cry out because he knows how annoying his whimper must be, he comes undone, body writhing with the knowledge that this must only be happening because he's the only living thing around, but mind reeling with incomprehension when Sirius lays kisses of old on the scars of new, hands reverent along the figure Remus knows isn't good enough.

"I love you," Sirius says, an aged breath in Remus's ear as hand languidly strokes up Remus's stomach. "I love everything about you, mate."

And Remus doesn't know what to say, doesn't know how to voice the "No, you can't" on his lips, not in the panting repose of their completion, as they lay together for the first time in over a decade. Instead, Sirius's arms curled tight, protective, around him, Remus can only worry that the natural chill in his frame will surely drive Sirius away, now that they've finished. He tries to tuck toe-tips together to keep the biting cold from all chance of marring warmer legs, but Sirius, with a sleepy growl, insinuates a foot and tangles ankles, bodies closer, and Remus shakes all the more with the upwelling of uncertainty, for how could any man worship what he is, this thing, this wretched pile of bones he's spent so long damning for its uselessness, its brokenness?

Pressing face to Sirius's chest, he chokes out his reciprocation, a sincere thing thick with apprehension, because he's sure he still won't be good enough, strong enough, worth enough to keep Sirius nearby forever, because he knows he'll never stop finding fault in himself. He knows he'll never be, in mind's eye, everything he wants to be for the man he loves.

But Sirius is so kind at present, so tender and worn away - softened - that Remus can't keep himself from yielding even his fretful thoughts to the night, to the moment, and most of all to the possibility, slim though it seems, that he might believe it one day when Sirius says he loves everything about him, in spite of the past, in spite of the present, in spite of his every imperfection.

And it's a silly thought, of course, but for just a second Remus wonders if maybe, just maybe, flawed can be perfect after all. Holding tight to Sirius against the years and the failings and the losses, he sure as hell hopes it can at least come close.


End file.
